Friday, 24 November 2017

Everything is broken in the Out Of Favour
(OOF) shop. Everything. This is a typical day. I’m not even joking:

The front door

The door is not my friend: the lock jams and the door itself
sticks. Consequently, I have to play, ‘push-me-pull-you,’ with increasing vigour
- and temper - whilst hunched over the doorway like the world’s crappiest
lock-picker for a five full minutes every morning. That’s every morning; for
months. This does not make me happy.

The coffee machine

I turn the coffee machine on and it begins to leak. I put a
dinner plate underneath to catch the drips. The machine has been leaking for,
perhaps, three months now. Apparently getting an engineer to fix the thing is a
ridiculously unthinkable idea (see also: Servicing/ behaving like a mature, responsible
shop owner), so it just gets worse, day by day. The plate is full after twenty
minutes. It is extremely important I remember to empty the plate in a timely
manner, otherwise the overflow will rain down onto the OOF Shop
Plug-Extension-Lead Modern Art Installation, which TBE (aka The Boss Erratic)
has positioned, rather astoundingly, underneath the coffee machine.

This morning, the coffee machine springs two leaks instead of
the usual one. Water pools all over the counter. I manage to shove a second plate
underneath the newcomer leak, and then pointlessly write yet another doomed message to TBE in the message book. Then I take the liberty of swearing
liberally to myself.

Friday, 17 November 2017

She seems to
have lost her mind over a pint of milk. Well, an ex-pint of milk. Actually, a
pint of milk that never was. Well it was, it just wasn’t when I found it.

Picture: creades, Pixabay

OK, let me
explain properly: I threw away a pint of milk because it was off, despite it
only having been bought the day before by Colleague Craft(y) for the Out Of
Favour (OOF) shop cafe. Then I bought another pint to replace it.

That’s it.

I left the
receipt and a little note to explain why a second pint of milk had been bought
in as many days, and thought no more about it*.

*If you’re new to this blog you might reasonably assume
that the purchase of two pints of milk in two days is extremely conservative
for a café. Unnaturally so. And you’re right, it is. But then, you’re probably
under the misapprehension that the OOF shop café is normal. It is not. Apart
from anything else, it doesn’t have a working coffee machine.....

About the shop

Acerbic? Me? Well, maybe. Let me explain: My boss (aka The Boss Erratic) owns two shops: the Out of Favour Shop and the New Favourite Shop (yes, OK, these are my names for them). Naturally, I work in the Out of Favour shop….
Many of my customers are regulars, and come for a gossip, a moan or free therapy as often as they come to buy.
My job is partly marvellous (low stress, a largely absent boss, friendly shoppers), and partly Twilight Zone (strange customers, inexplicable decision making by The Boss Erratic and just random, nonsensical weirdness). These posts are my musings and observations. Enjoy.
Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and me).